Rhetoric – The Public Speaking Game™

John Zimmer

6 years ago

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I am pleased and excited to announce Rhetoric – The Public Speaking Game™, the brainchild of my friend,Florian Mueck, and me.

Florian and I have a passion for good public speaking. Yet we know that for many people, the mere thought of it can get their hearts pounding. So we set out to create a game that would help players improve their public speaking skills and have fun in the process. The result is Rhetoric – The Public Speaking Game™.

We have designed RHETORIC to be a simple, engaging and educational board game for four to eight people. Players step onto the stage and embark on a rhetorical journey during which they encounter different speech tasks.

In each round, players roll the die and move their figures to the corresponding space where a one-minute speaking task awaits them. There are four types of tasks:

Topic – Players draw a card with a single word on it. They must speak about the topic.

Challenge – Players draw a card that has a challenging question or instruction. Challenges have been designed to stretch comfort zones!

Question – Any player can ask the speaker a spontaneous question on any topic.

Reflection – Players must share an insight or anecdote about public speaking with their fellow players. For example, they could share a personal public speaking experience, or suggest a presentation tip, or talk about a speaker whom they admire and why.

For Topics and Questions, players also spin one of two wheels that determine an aspect of delivery on which to focus or the manner in which the speech must be structured.

The game can be played competitively or non-competitively. If the former, each player receives a rating sheet. Throughout the game, everyone rates the speeches given by their fellow players. Players are thus competitors and judges at the same time.

Here’s the trailer for the game.

The first, limited edition of RHETORIC will be available to the public in the fall of 2012. For updates and more information, please visit www.rhetoricgame.com.

When we pretested the game, Florian and I were overwhelmed with the positive response. We are convinced that RHETORIC will help you improve your public speaking skills and that you will have a lot of fun in the process.

Rhetoric – The Public Speaking Game™. Learning, laughter and applause are guaranteed!

UPDATE!

This version of RHETORIC is now sold out. The second edition of the board game is available, as is the app for RHETORIC which will allow you to play the game in different languages. For more details, check out this post.